New Orleans Mother’s Day parade shooting: Police seek man seen in surveillance footage

Dylan Stableford

The LookoutMay 13, 2013

New Orleans Mother’s Day parade shooting: Police seek man seen in surveillance footage

Police in New Orleans have released surveillance footage of one of at least three suspects wanted in connection with the afternoon shooting that injured 19 people at a Mother's Day parade.

In the footage, posted to YouTube, a man wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants can be seen standing on the side of a street in the city's 7th Ward. The man appears to open fire on the crowd, which scatters, and the man flees.

Police believe shots were fired from different guns, and three people were seen by officers running away from the scene in the 1400 block of Frenchmen Street at North Villere. One "was seen running on Frenchmen towards North Claiborne then unknown," the New Orleans Police Department’s Public Information Office said in a release. That man was described as "an African-American male approximately 18 to 22 years-old wearing a white T shirt and blue jean shorts."

Police say most of the victims—10 men, seven women, a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl—were only grazed by gunfire, but three of them arrived at the hospital in critical condition and underwent immediate surgery, according to NOLA.com. The 10-year-olds "had graze wounds to the body and are in good condition," police said.

A separate, choppy video posted to the social video sharing app Vine appears to capture the moment shots were fired.

New Orleans Police and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to "the arrest and indictment of the person(s) responsible for this crime."

Police also warned that anyone withholding information or helping "harbor, conceal, or aid the offender, knowing or having reasonable ground to believe that he has committed the felony, and with the intent that he may avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment" could be charged as an accessory.

The annual parade was attended by about 400 people led by a contingent of police officers.

"The specialness of the day doesn't appear to interrupt the relentless drumbeat of violence," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a news conference late Sunday outside a hospital where the victims were being treated. "These kinds of incidents are not going to go unanswered. We're going to be very, very aggressive. There were hundreds of people out there today. So somebody knows who did this, and the way we're going to stop the violence together in this city is everybody come together."

New Orleans has a history of street violence, and federal officials say there is no indication the shooting was an act of terrorism.

"It's strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans," Mary Beth Romig, a spokeswoman for FBI New Orleans, told the Associated Press.

"All innocent bystanders got hit," Shannon Roberts—who said her nephew, niece and cousin were each shot—told NOLA.com from a hospital waiting room. "The city needs to stop the violence. It's hurting our families."